When more details came out about the monkey on a Frontier flight, I became more and more confused.

In this case, a man brought a monkey on board an airplane. The monkey was an Emotional Service Animal and was allowed to be on the plane. However, he didn’t produce the paperwork, had hidden the monkey at first, and then “refused” to produce the paperwork until police got there.

As I wrote yesterday, he was legally allowed to take that monkey onto to plane and let it hang out on his lap. I don’t see the benefit to being shady about the whole situation.

It turns out (of course) that there are more details to this situation.

The man had to rush to catch his flight and usually shows his ESA letter on his electronic device. He has it stored in the cloud (not locally) and couldn’t pull it up in the air. When the police came when the flight landed, he was able to pull up his support letter easily.

“I didn’t tell anybody on the plane that I had him … I was the last one on. I was rushing,” Ellis told KSNV. “Usually, it’s on the roster but it wasn’t because of the miscommunication on my behalf.”

Ellis was able to access Gizmo’s paperwork for police officers that met the plane in Las Vegas and, after that, Ellis told the Review-Journal, “They were very apologetic and sweet at Frontier Airlines,” even offering to refund the cost of his flight.

At no point was the monkey disruptive, despite initial reports that the monkey was “loose”.